


Admiration

by Missy



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Action/Adventure, Admiration, Bisexual Character, Character Study, Five Times, M/M, One Night Stands, Rescue, Romance, Spies & Secret Agents, Stream of Consciousness, Undercover, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 04:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19310347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Five times Sam admires Michael's spycraft.And many other things about him.





	Admiration

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Burn Notice, Michael/Sam, Sam likes seeing Michael work.

Michael Westen is an artist. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

He’s a creative liar, to others. An angel, to most. To some, the devil incarnate, wreathed in flames and hellish red. Sam has seen both parts of Mike. You got to see it all, when you work with him. 

That meant the bad – his scars, a big courtesy of that fuckhead Frank – to the good - like how often he stuck his neck out to worthy strangers in the hope of helping them . His generosity with Sam had been enormous. Sam knew he could never repay the debt – well, especially when he tended to mooch a little from Mike, but hey, what was a little mooching between lovers?

What’s a little mooching between people who would walk through fire for one another?

***

It goes all the way back. Back so far that Sam can’t even really remember. When he watched Michael finesse a couple of Iranian targets into a limo, where they were going to be interrogated for the information they were holding about the missing child of an American diplomat. There was a deadly elegance to him then – like a python, he wrapped himself around the target and squeezed until the information came bubbling up. He was a straight-as-an-arrow government suit; it was his job to make sure everything ended up where it needed to be, that codes stayed properly encoded. Michael somehow managed not to break a sweat while punching very angry men in the face; Sam wanted to ask about his tailor, but he wasn’t that much of a traditionalist.

Well. Not all the time.

He buys Mike a beer, and they decompressed alone and anonymously in a Turkish café. They don’t kiss until they’re alone and over the Greek boarder, still under the watchful eye of the government but with its blind gaze turned uncaringly towards the wall. Nothing lasts forever – not the night, or the stars twinkling over their heads. Not Mike’s Australian accent, or the smell of whiskey on his breath. But the memory will be tattooed in Sam’s mind forever. That much he can guarantee.

 

**** 

Pakistan, 1989. Sam plucks his first grey hair and Mike is in Algiers. He has no idea how the hell he managed to find a way to waffle into Sam’s unlisted telephone, but waffle in he has. Sam sat like a schoolgirl next to the old rotary device, listening to Michael talk. He tried out different accents on Sam, trying to find the best one to use on this banana republic dictator whom his handlers needed to have overthrown. Was he a more convincing Italian or German? 

“You’re a convincing American,” Sam said, but he kept hanging onto the telephone, twirling the cord between his fingers. 

“Sam, please be serious.” 

It takes them several hours to work out a Swiss dialect that seems passable. Sam even gives it his seal of approval. Mike’s professionalism is effortless. How can he do so many accents? How can his vocal cords bend in so many directions at once?

Sam doesn’t know, but he’s awed by it.

 

*** 

Paris. The city of romance. Sam doesn’t have time to think about sex – he’s working second fiddle on a sexpionage case, which requires keeping his pants fastened to his hips. The state department frowned on three-ways, apparently.

Sam didn’t really care – he wanted to be sure to do the job and do it well. If that meant sticking close to homebase and keeping his ear peeled to the radio all the time instead of popping champagne corks with pretty ladies, he’d do it. Unfortunately, half-awake one evening after hours of supervising surveillance, he spilled coffee all over his paperwork. And paperwork, his one true enemy, lingered over him like a total nightmare. He had absolutely no way to replicate it.

Out of frustration, he called Michael. “Hey, Mikey – do you know how to get transcriptions released after they’ve been encoded?”

A pause. “Sam, I’m in the middle of the Congo posing as an Australian alligator wrestler.”

“Wait, what?”

A deep sigh. “Do you need my help, Sam?”

Sam would never ask Michael for help unless he absolutely required his presence. It wasn’t a pride thing. It was a ‘Mike is impossible to reach most of the time’ thing. “Um. Yes please. My supervisors are already pissed with me.”

There was a low sigh. “I’ll make a call to the French embassy. Someone should have back-up transcripts – which I don’t believe you didn’t keep.”

“Mikey, I’m up to my armpits in French counterspies over here. Trying to keep my asset from dying is the most important part.”

A pause. Michael sighed. “All right. I’m on it.” And then a dialtone greeted him.

Twenty-four hours later the backup transcripts arrived, and Sam’s bacon was saved. His supervisor never found out. Sam didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth; he just thanked heavy for Mike’s skills and his discreet nature.

*** 

Tokyo was gorgeous in that neon-bright way that reminded Sam of New York. It was an easy place to forget his name. He was posing as a wealthy banker, and Michael was playing his co-worker. When they found themselves alone in a capsule hotel, one thing led to another. 

With Mike, it always did.

Sam tried like hell not to fumble his cover, but he could feel Mike beside him, the heat pouring off of him. He gritted his teeth, stayed the course, stuck with the plan. 

But Mike held it together. As always.

Like Sam knew he would. Spies – yeah, bitchy though they were, they knew how to compartmentalize. That was why he was a SEAL, not a spy.

*** 

When Mike calls him for the latest job, Sam is willing to hear him out. There’s beer on the table, and Michael’s smile is all gritted teeth and glares. Would he do the job, help him find this missing girl?

It was Mike. If he’d ask Sam to jump over the moon, Sam would have done it. 

Sam grinned. “Sure, Mikey. But, it’s gonna cost you?”

“What?” Michael asked, his face a mask of suspicion. 

Sam leaned over the table and kissed his lips. “This.”

Michael’s smirk was wide. “You don’t have to bargain with me for that one, Sam.”

Sam shook his head. “You never know, Mikey.”

With spies, one never truly did.


End file.
